Nature :: Spirit will be a place to try out the possibility that matter and spirit are not as split as Western societies like to think—that reality is more unified than most modern people give it credit for.

Please come join me at Nature :: Spirit. Your subscription from This Lively Earth will not carry over, so if you’d like to receive posts in your inbox, please sign up here.

See you at Nature :: Spirit!

The post An ending…and a beginning appeared first on This Lively Earth Blog by Priscilla Stuckey.

Sandia Mountain close to my new home in Placitas, NM. It’s easy to offer gratitude for beauty like this.

The Earth has completed a full turn around the sun since, inspired by the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, I set the intention to offer gratitude to everyone in the natural world every day, first thing in the morning, for a year.

So how did it go? Pretty good, all told. I rarely skipped a day, though far too often thanking other creatures got put off until after breakfast. Even now I procrastinate, even though I know from experience that being grateful to them first thing out of bed helps the day wear a different face—more gentle, more good—and helps me see that goodness with wider-open eyes.

It’s those benefits that keep me coming back, morning after morning, to stand gazing at trees, at birds and clouds, at rain or sun or snow, and now at Sandia Mountain—the mountain I recently left Santa Fe to live next to—and open my heart to everyone I see.

Really open it.

Open it so wide I can feel gratitude gushing through it toward all my neighbors—rocks and trees and animals and microorganisms, all of them kin, looking after us like aunties and uncles, providing everything we need to live. I thank them for being generous—for their gifts of color and light, of blood and sinew, of flowing breeze and the awe of flight, gifts of medicine and companionship, and of course gifts of the ground we walk on and the air we breathe. We are “utterly dependent on the lives of others,” writes Robin Wall Kimmerer, “the inherently generous, more-than-human persons with whom we share the planet.”

I thank them also for being dependable—for remembering how to do in every moment, 24/7, the thing they were meant to do. Unlike us humans, who forget how to be ourselves—how to release our gifts into the world and especially how to live in balance with our neighbors—other creatures never forget their purpose. Trees always photosynthesize; hawks never shrink from diving through the air after songbirds; worms always burrow; flowers always wear their particular shade of red or gold. Ecologists call it filling a niche, a job that every shrub and creeping thing accomplishes with what looks to me like great ease compared to all the mindfulness humans must conjure if we are to remember how to be ourselves—how to take what we need without excess, how to give back in equal measure, how to be happy with each day.

Yet there are other gifts, deeper ones, harder to articulate, that come from finding gratitude before breakfast. So early this morning, as I watched the dependable spin of this generous earth bring about the daily miracle of sunrise, I pondered how to talk about those subtler gifts. The light was diffusing slowly upward from the horizon, the stars and then the bright planets fading out, one by one, in the swelling dawn. These early morning hours—and their counterparts at twilight—have always brought me closer to the deep stillness at the heart of things, especially during winter. On December mornings no birds are rushing to sing in the day; only the furnace whirring through the house penetrates the silence.

This morning my mind was distracted by reading in the local paper yesterday about a new oil well about to be fracked some miles away. How unfathomable that we humans can repeat this evil in an age of poisoned waters and superheated climate! Today, reaching gratitude seemed impossible.

But I tried anyway, sticking to my usual pattern, beginning at the center of the Earth and moving outward, thanking each part of the family for whatever occurs to me in the moment to thank them for.

Thank you, unbelievably dense core of the Earth, for holding us together. For keeping our atmosphere in place and the moon dancing around us.

Thank you, fiery seas of magma on which we ride, for moving continents and creating change. For providing heat and fire to those who live above.

Thank you, waters below the earth, for your eons-long drip, drip, drip, gathering liquid life in aquifers, bursting out in springs.

Thank you, surface waters, for life. Thank you, rivers, for being the arteries and bloodstream of a living Earth. Thank you, seas, for nourishing life, all life.

Thank you, microorganisms, archaea, bacteria, and fungi, for making the soil. For digesting all that drops to earth. For being the intelligent highways of deep nutrients. For stimulating seeds to pop and plants to grow.

Thank you, rocks and minerals, for building the foundations of this Earth. For being the oldest ones. For giving us beauty and deep music.

Thank you, creepy crawly ones, for your marvelous weirdness. For keeping us on our toes. For being so different from us, and so ancient.

Thank you, plants, for providing food and medicines. Thank you for the joy bursting out of each seed into the visible world. Thank you for your colors.

Thank you, animals of the seas and animals of land, for being. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you always will be. Thank you for your varied intelligences. For providing food. For your companionship. For your variegated beauty. For working out the problems of survival in such hugely different and creative ways.

Thank you, trees, for your shade. For providing shelter for birds. For making oxygen so that we can breathe. For making it possible for us to be here.

Thank you, birds, for lifting our hearts with your twitterings. Thank you for the magic of flying. Thank you for singing.

Thank you, winds and clouds, for bringing change. For moving in harmony with what is. For rain and snow. For bringing surprises.

Thank you, moon, for your pearl-lit beauty. For guiding us in the night. For pulling the tides of Earth.

Thank you, sun—dear sun!—for life. For providing all the energy we need to live on Earth. For not forgetting how to burn.

Thank you, planets and stars, for the dance of the cosmos. For moving continually throughout time. For inspiring us with grandeur.

Thank you, Creator, great mystery, Life and Death, for flowing within and behind all things.

By the end, a magic had stolen over me. I was thinking a lot more about how magnificent each of these companions are than I was about the mere evil of a new oil well. To be sure, each new well, each act of poisoning air and water and land, increases the threat that we will destroy life on Earth as we know it, including ourselves.

But the life that brought us into existence is far greater than the destruction humans can do. We may be able to blast the tops off mountains, but we can’t touch the Earth-deep fire that explodes upward to create new mountains. We can harness the power of the atom, but we can’t even comprehend the intricacies of the nucleus, much less bring it into being. We can measure light-years to distant galaxies, but we can’t direct the cosmic dance whirling every day and night across our sky. We can destroy life on Earth as we know it, including ourselves—and we are speeding toward that end by burning dinosaur-aged fossil beds—but we can’t stop Life from trying new experiments and evolving different delights on an Earth as far removed from ours as the modern Earth is from the Jurassic.

The power of nature lies beyond anything we can touch. And this is the deeper magic of finding gratitude before breakfast—it keeps me focused on what humans can’t do instead of what we can. Like gazing at the boundless ocean, saying thank-you shrinks human power down to size. It helps me remember that the forces of Life and Death are infinitely larger than anything humans can accomplish. This knowledge is a comfort; it brings joy.

So, as I sit at dawn giving thanks to each of my kin, it occurs to me that at a moment like this, when humans are destroying the world that gave us birth, the best possible way to respond is to stay rooted in the awe-inspiring beauty and mystery of nature’s power. To absorb the world’s joy. To revel in the quirks and genius of every life form, including ours. To dwell in the goodness of the dance, performed fresh every morning, between the whirling Earth and the rising sun. To keep the awareness this big.

For only in this way will we have the juice that we need to address the current crisis. Being mesmerized by evil will sap our attention from the very power we need to meet it in the most effective possible way. To address a warming climate and poisoned waters and lands, we need first to dwell in the joy of birds flying and trees photosynthesizing and babies being born and yes, even the mystery of a Cooper’s hawk snatching a junco from my feeder at sunrise. For only by staying rooted in these unfathomable mysteries can we begin to absorb their power, can we begin to share their joy. And a spirit of joy is essential for finding truly creative solutions at this time.

I think I’ll keep on saying thank-you to all my relations every morning—as often as I can, before breakfast.

The post Finding gratitude before breakfast appeared first on This Lively Earth Blog by Priscilla Stuckey.

Summer is a great time for going on adventures in nature—communing with forest or seashore, hiking or camping or kayaking. Yet while most of us enjoy nature, it’s all too common to experience our spiritual lives as rather different from relaxing in nature. As if nature is one thing and spirit is something else. Or as if the visible world is over here, the invisible world is over there, and never the twain shall meet.

In nature spirituality, it’s all the same Great Nature

A path of nature spirituality (or a shamanic path) brings these sometimes separated parts of life together. Nature and Source can be experienced as one. While the Great Mystery (or Great Nature or Living Spirit or Source) is invisible—greater than and beyond the physical world—one gets to know it by watching and listening to the physical world, to nature. And the bird, animal, rock, water, fire, or other part of nature we meet as a Helper during a meditative journey is like the ordinary being we encounter in nature, but more so. The spirit bear or tanager or flower is recognizable as itself, bringing all the wisdom of its particular species, but because it is appearing in spirit, it may do things that the everyday bears or tanagers or flowers can’t do.

My primary Helper, Bear, in a meditative journey recently shared about this: “Going into physical nature and communing with a tree or going on a spirit-journey and communing with a tree in spirit”—Bear waved a paw—“it’s all the same thing.” Great Nature is the one reality we meet, both in the sensory world of nature and on a meditative journey. It’s all about relationship, getting to know nature in one form or another. The same Source comes to support us through both visible and invisible means.

Walking with Helpers

Who are the Helpers? They are the unseen, or spirit, forms of the creatures we glimpse in the woods or land or river. Helpers convey the tremendous wisdom and love of the Source, the Living Spirit. They walk with people as unseen friends.

Think of your closest friend, available at a moment’s notice by tapping a few keys. Now imagine you didn’t need to use the phone, and instead of signing off at night, your friend was available 24/7 with unfailing caring and support. And then suppose that your friend knew you perfectly, wanted only what is best for you, and always helped you see a bigger picture.

Finding a friend like this is life changing. Touching such caring gives people a different stance in life. My partner, Tim, will tell you that I’m happier and more peaceful since I got to know my Helper.

Finding your Helper

How do you find your Helper? It means taking time for reflection, time for being with the quiet of your heart. Spiritual or shamanic journeys are best for this—going into quiet meditation and tracking images or feelings as they arise. Once you have met your Helper, simply spending time with them on a regular basis in meditative journeys brings about a rich and joyous experience of living. (If you would like help in finding and developing a relationship with your Helper, I am available to provide support. Feel free to contact me using the contact form in the sidebar.)

Great Nature

“Great Nature has another thing to do / To you and me,” wrote the poet Theodore Roethke, “so take the lively air, / And, lovely, learn by going where to go.”

Here’s to learning by going!

Wishing you many summer adventures in Great Nature.

The post Listening to Nature as Source appeared first on This Lively Earth Blog by Priscilla Stuckey.

Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is bad news. Or it is thought to be. Called the “scourge“ of the American West, cheatgrass is deplored by ecologists, botanists, wheat farmers, native plant advocates, and ranchers alike for “infesting” American lands. That’s why a year ago, before reseeding our yard with native grasses and wildflowers, I spent a lot of time pulling it. Getting rid of cheatgrass is the first step in any successful restoration with native plants.

Given that each stem can produce up to 1000 seeds, and given the sheer mass of it—filling a 90-gallon trash bin twice—I figure I removed some 20 million seeds from this yard.

It worked. This year, cheatgrass is down by more than half. A few more years of careful weeding, and cheatgrass would be gone from this yard, all archived seed in the ground removed.

I love pulling cheatgrass—those tiny roots, slipping so easily from the soil! Those furry lavender stems, so soft! Sometimes I pull it just for fun, because it’s the easiest invasive to pull, and weeding it is quiet and meditative, giving me time to listen to rustle and twitter of birds in the yard.

And yet.

Every time I bend to the ground hunting cheatgrass, there’s a little nagging voice in my mind. It sounds something like this:

Do you really know cheatgrass?

Of course I do! I argue back with all the conventional wisdom I know:

Cheatgrass starves out native plants. It germinates in the fall (not the spring), and overwinters in the form of tiny dormant but green shoots, continuing to grow its root system all winter long. So when spring does come it has a head start on everyone else. It springs into action first, “cheating” other grasses and plants of their moisture and their nitrogen. It spreads so early and so fast that others can’t get a foothold.

Photo by Tony Hisgett, Flickr Creative Commons license

When cheatgrass moves in, native animals move out. This story reports on a decline in golden eagles in Utah’s western desert because cheatgrass crowded out the sagebrush. Without sagebrush, jackrabbits had no place to hide. Without rabbits in the area, eagles had no reason to visit or nest there.

Cheatgrass lengthens wildfire season. Cheatgrass sprouts early and matures early, so by June it is already dry and brown. It is flammable 1–2 months before other plants and stays flammable 1–2 months after, according to this widely quoted BLM research paper by Mike Pellant.

Cheatgrass increases wildfires and vice versa. Cheatgrass has a special relationship with fire. It moves into burned zones more quickly than most plants, transforming each new region into a cheatgrass monoculture, which in turn is more likely to burn. Some ecologists say that the fire cycle in sagebrush lands has shortened from a 40- to 100-year cycle before cheatgrass to a 5-year cycle since it arrived. And with each fire, cheatgrass grows stronger. Pellant reports that after a wildfire cheatgrass changes its pollinating strategy. Under normal conditions it is a self-pollinator, but after a fire cheatgrass cross-pollinates, becoming even more vigorous and adaptable.

Cheatgrass warms the soil. According to Pellant, the soil in grasslands is about 18 degrees F warmer than in sagebrush lands. So when cheatgrass turns a region into grasslands, the area warms, favoring the cheatgrass even more. Bad news for a changing climate as well.

Grazing animals don’t eat it. Cheatgrass seeds have long awns, the needle-sharp bristles at the ends of every seed casing. The conventional wisdom says that animals may browse on the plant when it is green, but they avoid it as soon as it puts out seed because the sharp awns hurt their mouths. So the vast rangelands of the American West are being blanketed by a crop that, it is thought, feeds no one or, at best, is undependable. Moreover, cheatgrass shortens the grazing season because once it takes over, there are no more late-season plants to eat.

I knew cheatgrass was bad news. I had fun getting it out of my yard.

And yet . . .

. . . there was that pesky little voice inside asking its bothersome questions:

What is the big picture here? What about a hundred years down the road?

Which led to the peskiest question of all:

Does cheatgrass perhaps know something you don’t?

When I hear contrarian questions like this, I try to pay attention. Especially because I am on the spiritual path of listening to Nature-Source, I try to listen for subtler voices. Even when they challenge all the conventional wisdom. Even when I don’t want to hear them, which is way more often than I care to admit.

I’m all too aware that what looks like disaster from a current human perspective can point to a deeper, longer-range wisdom about living sustainably and joyfully on Earth. Like the bark beetle “catastrophe.” From another perspective—say, that of the forest, the same forest that looks to human eyes like it’s being decimated—a bark beetle epidemic might just be the very thing that saves the forest.

So for a year I’ve been living with these nagging questions about cheatgrass. They have sent me searching for a deeper story. I’ve been digging in scientific literature, interviewing USDA researchers, and hunting down whatever I can find about the history of cheatgrass.

The most surprising thing I’ve learned is how little attention is being paid to cheatgrass itself. Almost no one writes about one very basic, scientific question: What ecological niche does cheatgrass fill? What services does provide to its surroundings? Or, to ask it in terms of relationships: How does cheatgrass fit into the larger give-and-take of its eco-community? The voices arrayed against cheatgrass and the urge to eliminate it are so overwhelming that almost nothing can be found about, say, what cheatgrass might know that we don’t.

My research is continuing. I will report on it soon. (And if you know something about the ecological niche question, please share it with us in the comments.)

In keeping with my spiritual path of listening to Nature-Source, I’m going to consult with cheatgrass itself. Or at least try opening my mind enough to make it possible. I have to say, this one is stretching me. The conventional wisdom is so strong, and I’m such a native plant enthusiast, that it’s taking me some time to seriously open to learning from cheatgrass.

But now that my mind is opening, there is the other half of the relationship to consider: After those 20 million seeds, why would cheatgrass want to talk to me?

Stay tuned for the rest of this story.

Update: Six months after this post, the New York Times published “Researcher Finds Way to Fight Cheatgrass, a Western Scourge,” by Christopher Solomon.

The post 20 million cheatgrass seeds appeared first on This Lively Earth Blog by Priscilla Stuckey.

The bounty of the Earth is something to treasure every day. I recall watching a mouse in my patio garden some years ago, poking around for breakfast among crisp autumn leaves. I grabbed binoculars for a closer look. The mouse nosed here and there and then suddenly pounced, seizing a newly dead yellow jacket. It stopped for a moment to nibble on the carcass then, as if it couldn’t contain itself, picked up its treasure and scurried a foot or two away and nibbled some more. Then just as excitedly it scampered to yet another spot for more feasting. The mouse looked for all the world like Bodhi with a fresh bone—so thrilled he can’t settle down in one place.

The mouse came to mind this week while on a meditative or shamanic journey with Bear, my Spirit Helper. Bear was reminding me of the great bounty of the Earth, how it provides moment to moment for each creature. “It’s all a gift,” Bear said, and then used a word I don’t hear very often. “It’s all mercy.” Bear suggested that a good way to live is to be as humble as that small mouse, who knows that every moment is a gift because at any moment one could be snatched for food.

In truth, Bear went on, every one of us is as vulnerable as that mouse. All creatures, from birds to mice to humans to bears, rely on the gifts that become available moment to moment. Humans beings, though, mask our utter dependence on Earth by amassing possessions, by saving and insuring, and by taking credit for our successes—as if they were due to our efforts.

But in fact every moment is a gift. In every moment we are utterly dependent on the gifts of others—gifts of food, gifts of beauty, and of course the gift of life itself, which lies far beyond our ability to comprehend. Every moment we live is a gift handed to us by a bountiful universe.

The truth of the matter is that living on Earth is an exercise in entrusting oneself, moment to moment, to the great gift that is Life.

This means that taking credit for successes makes no sense, and neither does passing judgment for failures. The only truthful way to live, Bear suggested, is with a simple, open heart. Showing mercy to self and others. Being grateful for the gift of each moment. Because only in this way is it possible to see how utterly we rely on the great mercy of the Universe, and only by seeing this great mercy can we enjoy it fully. Opening to the gift makes it possible to feel a complete delight in living.

“It’s all a gift,” Bear repeated. “It’s all mercy.”

The post It’s all a gift appeared first on This Lively Earth Blog by Priscilla Stuckey.